When it comes to most closing night films at festivals, it’s usually a case of scheduling a left-over after most critics have cleared out and remaining audiences can easily lap up before heading back home after many days of non-stop movies. Consider our surprise then when the Hailee Steinfeld-led, James L. Brooks-produced comedy The Edge of Seventeen was one of the most well-received films of all of TIFF. Ahead of a release just in time for Thanksgiving, a new red band trailer has now landed.
We said in our review, “Festival films about teenage angst are a dime a dozen, or maybe a nickel at this point. The genre is as constrained by its expected tropes as horror or superhero films in today’s age, and as in those cases, it takes a guile filmmaker to either make them work or do something new. The Edge of Seventeen does both, delivering a refreshing blast of humor and pathos, both of which are arrived at with an easy honesty which belie that this is writer/director Kelly Fremon Craig’s debut feature.”
Check out the new red band trailer below.
The Edge of Seventeen is a new coming-of-age movie in the vein of Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club – an honest, candid, often hilarious look at what it’s like to grow up as a young woman in today’s modern world.
Everyone knows that growing up is hard, and life is no easier for high school junior Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld), who is already at peak awkwardness when her all-star older brother Darian (Blake Jenner) starts dating her best friend Krista (Haley Lu Richardson)
All at once, Nadine feels more alone than ever, until the unexpected friendship of a thoughtful boy (Hayden Szeto) gives her a glimmer of hope that things just might not be so terrible after all.
The film also stars Kyra Sedgwick as Nadine’s well-meaning but completely ineffective mother, and Woody Harrelson as Nadine’s History teacher, mentor and reluctant sounding board.
The Edge of Seventeen marks the feature directorial debut of writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig, and is produced by Academy Award® winner James L. Brooks – the filmmaker behind big-screen, character-driven classics such as Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, Big, Say Anything, The Simpsons, Jerry Maguire and As Good as It Gets.
The Edge of Seventeen opens on November 18.